NASA World Wind introduction
At this moment, the NASA World Wind has a disadvantage that this can work only on the windows and using the .Net libraries and the DirectX. However the NASA World Wind has is about to develop a version in java using the JOGL soon. The NASA World Wind plans to feature an API-centric architecture having the functionalities that are “off-loaded” to the modular components. Thus, it leaves behind the API as the core. The intention of the NASA World Wind behind doing so is to facilitate the users to use the plug-ins interchangeably. This is to be done via Python. When this process has been done, the users can access the NASA World Wind through the browsers as well.
The NASA released a preview of the World Wind Java SDK on May 11 2007. This was on the annual ‘JavaOne’ conference of the sun corporation.
Forks and clones
Ww2D: it is a free, cross-platform and open source application that is based on The Java and OpenGL technologies. it is possible to run it on the Microsoft Windows, Linux(x86 and x86-64) MAC OS X-rays and Solaris on the SPARC. The WW2D makes use of the images obtained from the servers of the World Wind.
WW2D Plus One: it is an update of the WW2D and it provides images in 3D view.
Punt: it is fork of the NASA World Wind. Two members from the free software community started it. They had also contributed for the development of the NASA World Wind. Originally, the Punt was based on the code from the version 1.3.2 of the NASA World Wind. However, the first release of the Punt contained the features that were not from the NASA World Wind version 1.3.2 or 1.3.3. For example, it had the support for multiple languages. At this moment, the punt too is available only for the Microsoft windows. However, these nasa is trying to make it a cross platform product.
Dapple: this too is fork from the NASA World Wind. It was created by the developer fo the Geosoft. The Dapple was designed for the professionals from the field of geosciences. Therefore, it has many features that can be really, useful to them. For example, it has an easy method for adding the WMS servers and simpler UI.
SERVIR-VIZ: this is a version of the NASA World Wind that has been especially customized. This was developed by the IGAT, for the project named SERVIR.
The datasets provided
As the user accesses the images, the low-resolution images called the Blue Marble are downloaded by the NASA World Wind. Further, when he locates a point of interest and then zooms in on that place he gets the images of higher resolution. The full size of all the data sets available at this moment is approximately 4.6 terabytes.
The data sets for the different things as the earth moon planets etc are different. They are as given bellow.
The data sets for earth
Blue Marble, which is a low resolution and next generation imagery.
Landsat 7 data and imagery
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